Obscured
by aja
Summary: Reality is all relative.  Kate/Sayid.


_Nothing is mine. All is of ABC/Disney/etc._

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"**Obscured"**

Nothing felt good. Nothing felt good at all.

There was nothing but a hole inside him now as he stared into licking flames, whittling at his own fingers with dread. Sayid smelled his own heat, apathetic, occasionally letting his eyes flick up at passing movements. Old habits did not only die hard; they did not die at all. His tongue thickened, dry with salt. His chest hurt.

Nothing left, he thought. Nothing but meat. Nothing inside him. No love.

Nothing.

She was gone. He could not accept it. These things were facts. He still was aware of this, viscerally. Outside himself he let on very little, if anything, as to the contents of his inner workings – this was not a new habit, but since those sounds, the ringing of that gunshot ripping another hole in his life, the sound of bones and female flesh crushing against speeding metal, and the return of the surrounding isolation of the tropics, habit had become art. The world had spit him out onto the streets, back into the jungle. There was metaphor to be sought somewhere inside this, if Sayid felt so inclined, but of course there wasn't a point. He drew cool humid air into his lungs, let it out slowly, and told himself the flush he felt was relief.

The trees whispered to him.

_No_, he told the trees without speaking, and pushed himself up off of the white sand. Others followed him with their eyes as he strode for his tent, his own stinging, and hid himself away from the silent questioning.

The ground underneath his body was cold as he settled into it, hand curled around his blade. His wrists itched a bit; it was only his imagination. Sayid closed his eyes, tasted his grief, bit it away. She would not fade, no matter how he grit his eyelids shut. He didn't want her to.

While unconsciousness fingered its way into his brain, his body remembered her. It hardened him, sated him long enough for deep blackness to fasten its grip.

* * *

At times her need overwhelmed her, so much so that she stopped breathing and needed to force the air back inside her, consciously. What was worse, Kate had spent most if not all of her life trying to pinpoint exactly what that need was, and had never decoded the answer. There wasn't much left to do here after the sun set on what Sawyer called "this rock" other than stare out at the darkness of the ocean and contemplate one's life, a fact that no one here seemed to despise anymore, not nearly as hard as she did. Kate did not enjoy sitting on her haunches, waiting for something to happen. Day after goddamn day, that's exactly what she found herself doing. She never should have listened to him, to Jack – why _did_ she listen to him? Why did she come back here? Why had she even bothered? There was nothing for her here. Nothing but rejection, boredom, threats of violence, fear. Always, always the fear.

Kate swallowed, tasting her own saliva. She felt sour. She missed a son that wasn't her own, a mother that hated her for saving her life, a father she couldn't see in her mind anymore. Sanity she had never quite cultivated to its full potential. Tom. Sometimes she could still feel the handcuffs, the cold chains, the warden's fist knocking her to the floor, hard, and it woke her in the night. It only served to remind her that she wasn't heartless, just stupid. Stupid little girl made one too many stupid little choices in her stupid little life. Tears burned her eyes, and a whine began to brew deep inside her chest.

Oh, not tonight, she huffed silently to whispering tree-voices. Not again.

She pushed aside the sad little curtain that passed for a door on her tent and wandered out into the night, furtive, out into the jungle of endless secrets. The smell of rain followed her; eventually, so did the sound of water splashing onto leaves.

* * *

_Gunshots. _

Fear thrust Sayid straight out of sweat-soaked coma, panting in the darkness. The blade hovered in his hand, ready. He blinked, gulping back air.

The gunshots continued exploding in watery rhythm all around him.

"Rain," he said aloud, as an affirmation, and released the knife. It fell next to his leg with a dull thud. One's past is not a destination, Sayid, he thought, and allowed himself a brutal sigh. His mouth was of sandpaper. Rising to one knee, he paused, and then lifted each limb at a time to stand up. The world around him spun slightly. He ignored this and pushed himself out of the tent, into the dark pounding rain, finding solace in the way the water stung his eyes and wet his lips.

His ghosts followed him out into the dark, whispering, laughing at him as he slashed his way through the foliage, angered at nothing and at everything. All he knew was that he'd kept running after her for as long as he could possibly remember. Now he kept running from it, from his agony, and there was no escape from it, there was no coping with it. There was no release. There was no sense in grieving. In that, there was no sense in loss at all. There was no sense to life, either, but, Sayid figured in more lucid moments, that was part of its elusive charm.

He plodded forward, slashing his way with a bit less vitriol now, and decided mildly that he'd keep going forward until he reached the shore.

It was good, he told himself with a deep breath from his chest, to have a plan.

* * *

She'd started off at a wandering pace, not knowing where she was headed or why she was headed there, but the more she tried to work through those details, the faster her bare feet hit the fleshy jungle floor, propelling her into raining nothingness.

_No more no more no more_, her demons whispered to the rhythm of her pounding steps. Kate whispered with them as she ran, droplets blasting at her face. No more. No more following. No more fighting. No more apologies. No more pain.

Faster now. _No more pain no more pain no more pain…_

Pain. Pain crashed into the side of her jaw and her torso followed to the hard ground, led there by a root of a dark black tree. Kate screamed silently in shock and heaved a breath, blinking at her surroundings.

Something was moving in the trees behind her. Fuck. She could only spit out the dirt in her mouth and stare at the noise.

_Move._

She tried. Her arm muscles clenched, released, flexed, lifting her halfway off of the wet velvet floor. One knee, two knees, ankles, legs. She stood with a violent tremble.

Something slashed through the foliage immediately to her left. Kate choked on her bile. (But there's no clattering _quiet it'll hear you run run RUN_)

She ran. The slashing was drowned out by the blood screaming through her ears as she fled, only for a moment, then it resumed, nipping at her heels. The blood voiced itself in her throat as she gargled a shriek, rain and tears rushing down her face. Always being chased. Always running for her life. Stupid little Kate, running from her fate...

* * *

A cry and a soft crash brought Sayid's pace to a dead (_bad word_) halt; he stared into the soggy darkness, absorbing the new sounds of the new presence. There was fear in her breaths. Sayid fumbled in his pocket for the knife, finding none, and cringed in regret.

He opted to take a risk and stepped towards her breath in the murk, heard her whimper and then the dull splashing of her retreating footsteps.

New plan.

* * *

**TBC**


End file.
